Since 1973, US taxpayers have shelled out about $1.6 trillion to Israel -more than $5,700 per person.

2006 - Israeli girls signing rockets for Lebanon

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Here's a resolution, hot off the presses from Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee: H.RES.1531, "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the President of the United States should not issue pardons to senior members of his administration during the final 90 days of his term of office," Sponsor: Rep Nadler, Jerrold (introduced 11/20/2008). There is a petition promoting this resolution, through which you can write to your representative and senators athttp://democrats.com/nadler-pardons

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Imperial Sugar "Back in Business"

In the best Corporate American tradition of deny, deny, deny, as Lenny Bruce put it, John Sheptor, CEO of Imperial Sugar whose refinery in Savannah exploded last winter in a fire that killed 13 people, today broke ground for a new building to replace the one that was destroyed. As part of the ceremony, CEO Sheptor, who VP Graham H Graham said threatened to fire him if he said anything about just how bad conditions at the plant really were, and who ignored over 200 OSHA safety violations and citations in the space of two years, actually got down on his knees and led what remained of the workers in offering a prayer for those he had killed. http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2008/11/imperial-sugar-back-in-business.html

The United States has some serious problems: an ugly war, a shaky economy, a bad government (on the way out, at last). It's been a rough eight years. So of course it must be someone's fault, and Daniel Henninger has a simple explanation: blame the atheists. Especially blame the atheist's successful war on Christmas. He says, "A nation whose people can't say 'Merry Christmas' is a nation capable of ruining its own economy." You see, we've all lost the important values of "responsibility, restraint, and remorse" that Christianity inculcates.

Wait, what? The country has been run for the last eight years by a gang of amoral atheists? Bankers are atheists? All those people who borrowed money unwisely are atheists? Christians don't default on loans, don't exploit lax banking rules, don't start wars, don't torture?

I would like to visit Mr Henninger's alternate dimension.

Here on my planet, of course, this country has been run by the evangelical wing of the Republican party, the vast majority of the population are Christians, it's almost impossible to get elected to positions of any power without being a professing theist, and the religious right has been deeply tangled in political decisions, while atheists do little more than write books. Nobody has banned "Merry Christmas" — militant atheists like Dawkins (and Myers) happily put up Christmas trees every December, although of course we do regard it as an entirely secular holiday.

I'm not at all concerned about people who say "Merry Christmas", and don't really think whether you say the magic mantra or not has much of an effect on the economy. I'm much more worried that the editorial staff at the Wall Street Journal, who all seem to be delusional loons, might be influencing the management of our economy.

Maybe Mr Henninger needs to read Kathleen Parker, who at least has noticed that the Republican party has become the god-walloping know-nothing party, and that maybe that has something to do with the state of the nation.